


The Path to Feeling, the Path Towards Healing

by QwillReign



Category: Septimus Heap - Angie Sage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Book One: Magyk, Book Two: Flyte, Fluff, Happy Ending, Healing, M/M, One Shot, Red String of Fate, Stream of Consciousness, Warnings for typical Young Army stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29203095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QwillReign/pseuds/QwillReign
Summary: They say that every person has a string.Boy 412 did not, and he was glad. Strings meant emotions, and emotions were weak. Boy 412 could not afford to be weak.
Relationships: Septimus Heap/Mandy Marwick
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	The Path to Feeling, the Path Towards Healing

They say that every person has a string. They say that no one has ever gone through life without meeting the person at the other end. They say that eventually, even if it be your dying hour, you will always, always, follow your string. They say that when you do, you will be the most complete you ever have been, and you will never be alone again. They say that your string-end, your other half, is your soulmate. 

They say that every person has a soulmate. But some, some don’t. Sometimes, rarely, there came to be people that didn’t have a soulmate. Boy 412 knew this was true, because he had never, not even once, seen a string. He was a mere child when the young army told them about the strings, a child when he realized he was different. A mere child when the Cheif Cadet had the rest of the boys follow their strings, and he sat on a cot with 409, who was like him, and they waited. One by one, the other boys came back with their soulmates. One by one, 412 saw them be happy. He thought that they were happy at least, 412 couldn’t know for sure, because he had never been happy himself. He didn’t know what ‘happy’ was. That was the day he first saw happy. 

That was also the day he first saw despair. 412 watched as, one by one, the pairs of soulmates moved to the front of the room. He watched as the Wizard Scum the Chief Cadet had brought in worked some difficult Magyk. He watched as one by one, boys lost their strings. He watched as the soulmates were taken away, and both halves cried. He watched. He did not feel despair, for he had not known the happiness that came first. He sat, motionless, on his cot. He sat, and he felt nothing. 

It was not unusual, feeling nothing. Over the years, boy 412 often felt nothing. When he did feel something, it was mostly fear. Fear was weak, weak and worthless and entirely unhelpful, so he shunned the feeling. Occasionally he felt momentary relief, but that made you lower your guard. It was weak and worthless and entirely unhelpful. Sometimes, when he and 409 managed to grab a moment of quiet on watch during a Do-or-Die exercise, he thought that maybe he felt something that might have been happiness. But something terrible always followed. He knew that happiness was weak, but somehow he couldn’t always stop it. 412 eventually decided that all emotion was weak. Emotions made you fragile, and you had to be strong, not fragile, to survive. He was lucky to not have a soulmate. The boy’s who had had soulmates were weaker than he was, because they felt. Boy 412 did not feel. He didn’t want to. He really, really didn’t want to feel. 

Boy 412 was numb, unless he was alone with 409. It was a simple fact of life. He wished the other boys had realized that it was the easiest way to live, but they kept on feeling. He watched them disappear on Do-or-Dies, and he watched them be punished with no rations, or extra shifts, and he blamed it all on their feelings. 412 knew better. He felt when he was with 409, and 409 alone. Then, with 409 watching his back, 412 allowed himself the sadness of loss, and he allowed himself to feel. Only for a moment though, before he and 409 sat side by side again, warm in each other’s embrace, feeling what he thought just might have been ‘happy.’ 

Soon enough, 412 and 409 would stop feeling. They would go to other sides of the camp, and the others would wake. They would be numb, and they would go on surviving. 

It was because of their lack of strings, they thought, that they were able to stop feeling. Perhaps they were never meant to feel, they whispered, perhaps they were meant to be the best Young Army Expendables ever. That’s what 412 had to believe, in order to keep going. In order to be the best, to avoid punishment, to survive.

Except, of course, Boy 412 had a string. He hadn’t known, and he certainly hadn’t wanted one. But when 409 fell of that ship during a Do-or-Die, 412 was the furthest he had ever been from his best friend. He was, apparently, the furthest he had ever been from his other half, from his soulmate. That night, 412 felt more than he had ever before. He felt desperation, and despair, and loneliness, so much loneliness. His only refuge from the day-to-day was 409, and 409 was so, so gone. His string stretched further and further in front of him, and when the Cheif Cadet refused to go back for 409, for his soulmate, 412 broke inside. 

He spent hours waiting for the string to blink out, to fade from the brilliant red to the lifeless black he knew it would, for no-one could survive the river. 

He spent days waiting for the string to fade, because even if 409 had survived the river, he couldn’t possibly survive the forest alone. 

He spent weeks waiting for 409 to come back, once it was clear that he was up and moving from the angle of the string. 

He spent months waiting to stumble across 409 during a Do-or-Die, to have to watch him be branded and punished for leaving, for being a traitor. 

Eventually, 412 realized he would probably never see 409 again. Not unless he got out as well. 

At this point, 412 was feeling all the time. He only felt the sadness though, nothing else. He didnt let himself feel fear, or hope, or relief. He didn’t let himself feel that momentary happiness anymore, he didn’t think he could. 

He did, however, let himself feel one other thing. He felt determination. Determination, more emotion than he had ever thought possible, to get out. He refused to let go of that determination, to his plans. HE didn’t think that he could go on without it, to be honest. 

Boy 412 was determined. He was determined to live. Well, he was determined to survive, at least. He was determined to survive until he could live, and the only way he could do that, he believed, was to get out. 

He needed to get out. He needed to follow his string, and to find 409. He tried to escape during every Do-or-Die, but there was always someone there who would notice, who would raise an alarm. If someone raised an alarm, he would be hunted down, he was sure. It would be better to be thought dead. But there was never a chance, so 412 waited. 

In another life, one without soulmates, Boy 412 was scared of the Extra-ordinary wizard, and of the Princess. In another life, he refused to speak, and he thought his only friend was dead. In another life, he was closed off and tried to give them away to the hunter who followed. 

In this life, Boy 412 left the young army behind as soon as he could. 

In this life, Boy 412 knew his best friend was out there, and he knew he could get to him much more easily without the young army around. IN this life, 412 and Jenna and Nicko bounded fast, and bonded strong. Boy 412 learned Magyk from Marcia, he accepted that apprenticeship as soon as he could. It would help him find 409, and that was the only thing that mattered. 

And in this life, during his time in the marshes, Boy 412 felt again. He did not feel true joy, not without Marwick. But he thoroughly enjoyed doing Magyk, and he relished in being able to talk freely, to eat well, and to wake late. 

It had still taken him a long time to be able to trust these people who had saved him from the snow, it still took him a long time to adjust to life outside of the Young Army. It was still difficult, as healing always was. 

But 412, or Septimus, as he kept reminding himself, was happy. He returned to the Castle, and he lived int he wizard tower now. He had a life, a good one, he was living. He had a family, and a friend called Beetle, and he always had enough to eat. He always had clean clothes, and he though he looked pretty darn good in green.

However, the green always amplified the red. 

The red string that pointed to 409, to his soulmate, was something he would never, ever forget. It was hard for 412- no, for Septimus- to know that he was out, that he had done it, and he could live. It was hard, because 409 was not there to be living with him. 

He wasn’t sure why it was so hard. He could tell Marcia, he knew he could. She would help, he told himself, she would probably insist on coming with him. But he didnt, and he hurt inside, quietly, unceasingly. 

He realized, after many more years of healing, after talking with someone who knew how to help with that sort of thing, with emotions, that he hadn’t asked Marcia because he was scared. He was scared that 409 wouldn’t want him anymore, that he had stayed away because he hated 412- no, Septimus- or that he would find 409, and 409 would be dead, and the string would still glow, because if the universe was so cruel to 412 for so long, why would it have stopped? 

HE was scared of Marcia too, he thought. Not because she was scary, per say, but because she was an authority figure, and that in itself was enough to make him wary for a long, long time to come.  
He didn’t know that at the time. All Septimus knew was that 409 was out there, and he hadn't found him yet.

Eventually, Septimus stopped looking at the string when he walked. Eventually, in a rush of adrenaline, he forgot about it completely, and didnt notice when it stopped pointing ahead, and started pointing behind instead. 

He did notice, however, when his forest brothers, who had accepted him warmly to their camp, introduced their friend Wolf Boy. 

He noticed Wolf Boy’s familiarity completely, but he didnt place it for a long few minutes, after he noticed the string. 

Septimus noticed the string followed the so-called Wolf boy when he moved. He noticed the long stares, and returned them in kind. He noticed, and he felt.

He felt the happiest he had in a long, long time. Perhaps the happiest he had ever felt. 

It was the greatest feeling in the world, this happiness, this joy. 

And so, Boy 412 crept out of his tent as soon as Beetle fell asleep. He sat down next to 409, and he felt warm arms reach around him. He smiled and leaned in closer. 

Together, the boys felt comfort. They felt peace and happiness they had forgotten existed, and finally, finally, they felt whole.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! Don't forget to kudos and comment!


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